The Waring rank of binary binomial forms (Q2234352)

Determining the Waring rank of polynomials is a classical problem in mathematics. For instance, the famous Sylvester's algorithm for Waring decompositions of binary forms dates back to 1851. In general, computing the Waring rank of a given polynomial is difficult. In recent years Carlini, Catalisano and Geramita [\textit{E. Carlini} et al., J. Algebra 370, 5--14 (2012; Zbl 1284.13008)] gave a formula to compute the Waring rank of monomials in any number of variables. In this paper the authors focus on calculating the Waring rank of complex binomial forms in two variables. Given a binomial form \(f=ax^ry^{s+\alpha}+bx^{r+\alpha}y^s\), their technique consists in utilise Sylvester's algorithm: \(f^\perp=(g_1,g_2)\), where \(\deg g_1\leq \deg g_2\) and \(\mathrm{rk}(f)=\deg g_1\) if \(g_1\) is square-free, otherwise \(\mathrm{rk}(f)=\deg g_2\). The problem boils down to find \(g_1\) and verify if it is square-free. The authors utilize the Hilbert function to show that their candidate for \(g_1\) is indeed a minimal generator of \(f^\perp\). Denoting \(r=q\alpha+j\), \(\delta=r+\alpha-s\), the authors obtain in Theorem 3.1 \[ \mathrm{rk}(f)=\begin{cases} s+1,&\ \text{if }\delta\leq 0;\\ s+2,&\ \text{if }j=0,r=s,\alpha>1,\delta>0;\\ s+1,&\ \text{if }\delta=j;\\ r+\alpha+1,&\ \text{if }j>\delta;\\ r+\alpha-j,&\ \text{otherwise}. \end{cases} \] Furthermore, they study the real Waring rank of binomial forms, and show that it does not depend on the coefficients \(a,b\) if the degree of \(f\) is odd. Otherwise, if the degree is even there are at most two possibilities for the real Waring rank depending on the sign of \(ab\). The exposition of the paper is very clear and the results are interesting, there are several examples that show the wild behavior of the rank of binomial forms, it can be subgeneric or suprageneric depending on the parameters.